POSITIVE FEEDBACK ONLINE - ISSUE 15 townshend audio Maximum Super Tweeter as reviewed by Dave Clark Super (adjective). Synonyms: glorious, great, incomparable, keen, marvelous, outstanding, peerless, sensational, smashing, superb, top-notch, wonderful. Okay, that pretty sums up what I have to say about the Townshend Audio Super Tweeters. And I thought that that book of synonyms and antonyms my aunt gave me for my birthday would never get any use! DAVE CLARK'S SYSTEM: Yeah, but I know what you are thinking, "Cool, a super tweeter, but you’re not going to LOUDSPEAKERS Reimer Speaker Systems Tetons get off that easy!" "Besides, what do we really have here?" "Another add-on to add-on (with the Hi-Vi Isodynamic Planar to the add-ons?" Not really, as this may be one of the few real add-ons that really tweeters and series crossovers) add-on to the music, without adding-on anything that should not be added-on. heavily treated with Marigo VTS Dots, with Townshend Audio super-tweeters. Add-on super tweeters have been around for a long time, and are now having a resurgence in popularity, perhaps due to the new formats that push the frequency ELECTRONICS envelope. Ribbon tweeters from Decca and semispherical piezoelectric tweeters from Clayton Audio M100 monoblock amplifiers. Sutherland PhD phono MuRata have garnered much acclaim among the audiophile faithful. What we have stage. Blue Circle BC3000 here is the latest from Max Townshend of Townshend Audio, add-on ribbon tweeters preamplifier w/Tunsgram tubes that will extend the frequency of your speakers to a point that can drive the neighbor's and BCG3.1 power supply. dog batty. Looking like electric razors from an era long past, the Townshend Audio SOURCES Maximum Super Tweeters have a claimed ruler-flat frequency response of 20kHz to Cary 306/200 CD player or Sony 70kHz (-3dB at 12kHz and -6dB at 90kHz). The sensitivity is adjustable via a stepped 777ES SACD/CD player. attenuator, to suit speakers ranging from 80 to 110dB in sensitivity. Their impedance is Transrotor 25/25/60 Leonardo turntable with a Shelter 901 MC a nominal 6 ohms at 20kHz and increases to 30 ohms at 100kHz, though they look cartridge. Sony RCD-W1 like a rather benign 8 ohms to the amplifier. They can handle up to 350 watts, so and Magnum Dynalab MD-90 unless you are planning on killing your self and your system, they should be fine with tuner. Sennheiser HD540 headphones and Meier Audio any sensible amplifier. And they are quite heavy despite being so small—meaning headphone amplifier. their magnet is rather beefy. CABLES Alright, what do the Townshend Super Tweeters really do? I mean, we are all pretty Audio Magic Clairvoyant 4D, JPS Superconductor+, Soundstring, deaf above 16kHz, and most people spin regular CDs, where there ain't nuttin' much and Silver Sonic Revelation above 20kHz anyhow (actually 22.5Khz, if you want to be exact), so what's the deal? interconnects, and Audio Magic (Of course, DSD, DVD-A, and LPs do not see this rolloff—make that a brick wall or Clairvoyant 4D or JPS NC speaker cables. Elrod EPS2 dead end at 20kHz—so playing any of these formats with the Townshend tweeters in Signature (preamp and digital) the chain should result in a more significant audible improvement than that heard from and JPS Aluminata (amps) and regular CDs. This is true, at least to my ears and senses, although greater benefits Kaptovator AC cables (Eclipse uses two). can be heard further down range. More on that later.) ACCESSORIES To paraphrase from the Townshend site: Audio Magic Eclipse Power Purifier, Blue Circle BC86 Noise Hound (amplifier circuit) and The all new Townshend Audio Maximum Ribbon Super Tweeter is designed to extend Audio Prism QuietLines the response of conventional Hi-Fi speakers to 100kHz. Just as the subwoofer fills in (throughout the house). the bottom end, the Maximum Super Tweeter fills in the top end. It makes the music Dedicated 20 (amps) and 15 (everything else) AC circuits. much more real! All instruments—even double basses—take on an extra clarity that is Tons of Shakti Stones and neither bright nor brash. In fact the sound is both clearer and smoother. The really On-Lines and Original Cable surprising thing is that when the tweeters are played alone, one can barely, if at all, Jackets (frig's AC and on DSL phone line). Various Marigo VTS hear a thing. Remarkably, however, all listeners—even, for example, those having no Dots used extensively throughout sine wave sensitivity above 10kHz—experience the same enhancement when the the system and room (window Super Tweeters are engaged, describing the sound of their hi-fi systems as 'more behind listening seat). Echo Buster acoustical treatments and natural' and comfortable to listen to. Shakti Hallographs. BDR cones and board, Blue Circle Cones, Max goes on to say: DH Jumbo cones, Vibrapods, Mondo racks and stands, and Townshend Audio 2D (speakers) Embodying super-powerful neodymium magnets and an ultra thin eight micron pure and 3D Seismic Sinks (CD player aluminum ribbon, the Super Tweeter offers outstanding performance in an easy to and preamp). Walker Audio Ultimate High Definition Links. drive compact package. All copper conductors, including the matching transformer Various hard woods placed here windings and the aluminum ribbon, are deep cryogenically treated (DCT) for unrivalled and there along with numerous fidelity. Pressure relief vents in the sides of the case are provided to allow the air Peter Belt treatments. pressure on the ribbon to equalize in the event of sudden pressure changes. Okay, now we know what they are, and what Max Townshend says they do, but let's take this a bit further. Tannoy, in a white paper on their super tweeters, suggests that they may be doing several things (at least with their own speakers, so lets assume this applies to other speakers—see Tannoy for more). Super tweeters extend the frequency range of a loudspeaker by several octaves above that of human hearing —16-20kHz (audible by children at least!). This makes sense, they are super tweeters —they'd better have an output up to the stratosphere (and the Townshend tweeters do). This, based on the fact that many instruments produce considerable energy above 20kHz (some extend up to 40kHz), results in increased tonal accuracy of instruments and improved transient response. That is, with super tweeters, things sound more right. Another site (http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~boyk/spectra/spectra.htm) digs even more deeply into the matter of how much musical energy various instruments possess above the threshold of what a normal person can hear. According to this site, there is quite a bit of musical information well beyond what one we assume is the limit of our hearing. Of course, this begs the argument that if we cannot hear that high, who cares? I have read theories related to things like hairs inside the skull being stimulated (or something like that) by frequencies far beyond what we can hear. This allows us to respond in other ways to these frequencies (that is, we do react to them), and I would say that until this is explored by a trained professional—as opposed to an untrained professional, who should not be exploring the hairs inside our skulls or anywhere else—we can leave this argument for now. Okay, but if a regular CD cuts things off rather abruptly at 20kHz, why should super tweeters make a difference with that format? And if all that stuff beyond the audible range is not being heard or reacted to (assuming that the previous is circumspect—I'm not saying it is or isn't), why do the super tweeters do what they do lower down the frequency range, with any format? Paraphrasing again from the Tannoy site, a super tweeter, if it can be time aligned to the other drivers (mid and treble), "… will reduce the high frequency phase error by moving the low pass roll off point much higher, typical - 6dB @ 54kHz, -18dB @ 100kHz. So even if we ignore for now the perception of sound above 20kHz, the addition of a super tweeter will better preserve the harmonic relationship between instruments." Tannoy concludes by stating that, "Even with the conventional CD sources, the addition of a super tweeter reduces phase error and improves transient performance (of a speaker) significantly below 20kHz." This makes sense if they are affecting the output of the other drivers as suggested above by the STs' own output below 20kHz. And since they do have considerable output within the audible frequencies (down to below 12kHz), it would appear that their presence helps to clean up the interaction of the mid and treble drivers, or, as a teacher might suggest, the Super Tweeters get the other drivers to play together just that much better. Ahhh, harmony. All this means that their effect should carry over to any medium being played—CD, SACD, LP, 8-track, etc. If they affect the interaction or behavior of the main speakers, then you get the whole deal all the time—not just with extended bandwidth formats. Cool. I should point out that I did the majority of my listening to either LPs or regular CDs. Max Townshend offers that his STs are so far superior to conventional dome tweeters in terms of speed, transient response, energy storage (in this case, the lack thereof), distortion, linearity—in other words, all the things tweeters should do—that they tend to “block out" the faults of the dome tweeters, allowing the listener to focus in on the good versus hearing the bad.